Lincoln's Birth Story

I typed up Lincoln's birth story and attached it as a link rather than post the entire thing on the blog. Be forewarned that it's pretty long and includes most of the gory details (it's really not that bad). Click on the link below to access a pdf file of the story.

Lincoln's Birth Story



We sure love the little guy.

The good, the bad, and the ugly

Since this is our family journal as well as a blog to share with our friends and family, I have decided to share a couple of stories that may not paint the prettiest picture of family life. I was inspired by my friend Emmy's blog where she posted a story of her son (about Allie's age) leaving the house unnoticed (by Dad) and then being spotted (by mom) running across 5 lanes of traffic on a very busy street. Luckily he made it across unharmed and ran right into a police officer on the other side. I'm sure I'll have plenty of stories like that one to tell soon enough.

But for now here are some fun ones from several weeks ago.

Story #1
When Lincoln was born we had some friends stay with the kids while we were at the birthing center. When we got back with the new baby, the husband was concerned that Allie and Jack might really hurt the baby because they were being a little too rough with him. He told the kids that if they weren't careful with Lincoln they could kill him. Ever since then Allie has been obsessed with whether or not something might kill a person.

During my mom's stay with us, after Lincoln's birth she came up with the idea to put him in his bouncy seat and then put the seat inside the pack-and-play so that the kids couldn't "accidentally" rough him up too much. It was a great idea until "the incident." I had Lincoln in the pack-and-play asleep in his bouncy chair. I was sitting in front of the pack-and-play on the couch with my back turned to it. Allie was also back there playing. All of a sudden I heard a weird noise and turned around to find that Allie had fallen into the pack-and-play on top of Lincoln. I ran over and pulled her off of him and out of it and then sent her to her room so I could make sure that Lincoln was OK. After all, he did just have over 40 pounds of big sister on him. Interestingly enough Lincoln was still dead asleep and had no idea what had just happened.

Allie on the other hand was in her room screaming "is he killed, is he killed?" I felt bad for her and told her that he was fine but that she needed to be more careful. It turns out that she was climbing on some couch cushions next to the pack-and-play and fell into it. All day she kept checking on Lincoln to make sure he wasn't "killed."

Story #2

Allie has recently learned how to name call, but not very well. A few Saturdays ago I was about to take the kids for a car ride to put the baby to sleep and Allie did something she wasn't supposed to do. At this point, I don't even remember what it was. After I told her that she needed to go for a time out she yelled at me "mommy, you're stinking." She ended up not being able to come for the car ride and had to stay in her room while Jack, Lincoln and I were gone (Adam was home with her, of course). Oh, the joys of now having a four-year-old. They are so mouthy.

What do kids do when mom & dad aren't watching?

Sometimes, when parents aren't watching, kids will have a little fun of their own. Such as...

Create things to stick on the wall.

Dismantle gingerbread houses.

Eat all of the candy from a bowl.

Pull bags of sugar off of the counter and dig in.

Dump a whole bag of Chex mix on the floor (once again, from the counter).

Smear lip gloss all over yourself.

Throw stickers, paint, and bananas in an old box (from the counter, of course).

Drag Race!

This is a little bike ride from last month. I like Jack's choice of a hat.

Three kids under four

Today is the last day that we will be parents to three kids under the age of four. I don't think that things will magically get any easier tomorrow when Allie turns four-years-old, but it has been a little crazy these last 12 days with three kids so close in age. I often think to myself "what the heck was I thinking". Adam, I take full responsibility for the craziness that is our life. After all it was my "master plan" to have these kids so close together. It does give me some peace of mind to think that the closer together we have them, the sooner we will be done with diapers, wipes, finding pacifiers and sippy cups that have been dropped and lost, middle of the night feedings, sleep deprivation, bottle washing, diaper bags, strollers, infant car seats (I guess we still have to deal with other car seats since kids these days seem to need one until they are in high school), high chairs, and the ever dreaded potty training. I'm sure there are many more joys of having little ones around that I've forgotten to list-feel free to add them to the comments to remind me. The down side to this is that all of our children will be in college and/or on missions at relatively the same time. I guess we better start saving now. Talk about empty-nest syndrome. I'm sure by then it will be a much needed break. Four years down, only eighteen more to go. Despite all of the insanity in our house right now, we really are having a great time with all of the kids, especially watching them be so sweet to their new baby brother.

5 vs 5

Try to spot the similarities and differences between the two families of five (one when Adam was just a new infant in 1978 and the other when Lincoln was just a wee little infant in 2009).

Introducing Lincoln!

Lincoln was born on January 16, 2009 at 1:27pm. He weighed 7 lbs 7 oz and was 20 inches long. It was a relatively short active labor, but I am sure Jen would say that it was not really that "short." I'll let her fill you in on the details. Now on to the pictures.

Here we are at 5:45 am before leaving for the birthing center

This is the room where Lincoln was born

Lincoln was born at 1:27 pm

Jen and Baby Lincoln about 3 hours after his birth

Little Lincoln Logs

Link-a-doo


Already asleep before even getting in the car


West family of five

Snow Day???

I'm not really sure if it snowed on Tuesday night or not. When I went to bed it was hailing a ton and when we woke up the next morning our backyard was somewhat of a winter wonderland (or at least as close as it gets in these here parts of Texas). The kids were so excited to go outside and play in it. I had to get ready for my midwife appointment, so Adam got the kids all bundled up and took them out. I think they looked pretty cute and they had a ball playing until they got their gloves soaked and their hands started freezing.

Allie and Jack all dressed and ready to go out.
Jack ate or licked a ton of the ice which is no surprise because he licks everything (including people-he thinks it's hilarious).

The kids playing in the ice.

Allie filled the sand box up with ice. Later it melted and Jack fell in. He was freezing.

Baby Blog

Wow it's been a long time since I've written a blog. So I figured I'd give a pregnancy update since we've had an interesting few days with it. Saturday I planned on going shopping all day for Christmas. I had a ton of places to go in search of a red sweater for Jack. We were having family pictures taken today at the capitol and all I really needed to find on Saturday was a red sweater. It shouldn't be that hard (oh, and a long black skirt for myself-not even maternity). After over 5 hours of shopping and looking in every store in Austin, no red vest (just a sweater) and I had only found one long black skirt which was perfect. Anyway, the point is that very early that morning it felt like the baby had dropped. All of a sudden I could feel a ton of pressure and the kicks were much lower than normal. Throughout my shopping expedition I did a ton of walking and I could feel my hips separating (0uchhhh).
on Tuesday I had an ultrasound scheduled to check the position of my placenta and make sure it had moved up and out of the way. I expected it to be a quick appointment, in fact I almost brought Allie with me. It's a good thing I didn't. It took forever. The ultrasound tech remeasured all of the babies body parts because it had been a while since my last ultrasound. Everything measured well. I also had her check to make sure the baby was still a boy and she said it was very obvious that he was. So the problem that took so long is that she couldn't get shot of my cervix to make sure the placenta was far enough away from it. Of course she couldn't because the baby had dropped so low on Saturday that his head was right over it. Eventually she had to go talk to the doctor (which is always a little scary) and they decided that she would have to do a vaginal ultrasound. That worked. She was able to see that the placenta is out of the way of the cervix and everything looked good.
The next day I had an appointment at the birthing center with one of the midwives. I told her that I thought that the baby had dropped on Saturday and she didn't really seem to be too worried even after I told her about the whole ultrasound ordeal. Then she felt my stomach to check the way the baby was lying (head down) and started to get worried when she realized the baby did in fact feel like he was engaged. So, she did an exam and said that his head is really low and that my cervix has started to thin. She didn't really check to see how far dilated I was because she was afraid that would send me into labor. She estimated about 2 cm. Then she said that she should put me on bed rest, but realized that was ridiculous since I have two little ones at home. She said to stay off of my feet as much as possible, no cooking, no walking and no cleaning. So, I went home and cleaned the house for Activity Day that night. But that's it, no more major cleaning (luckily Adam did the mopping). She did move my due date up almost one week as we went back and looked at early ultrasounds and checked dates. If I deliver soon (which I'm not going to) then the baby should be ok. I would just have to deliver at the hospital and I really don't want that. If I can hold off until the day after Christmas that will put me at 36 weeks, according to my new dates, and I can deliver at the birthing center. In the meantime, I'll be keeping my fingers crossed and saying some serious prayers and I'll take any prayers that anybody else has to offer.

34 weeks pregnant (can't really see my belly since I'm wearing a black shirt, but it's there)
About two weeks ago (at 32 weeks)

Pumpkin Patch & Halloween Party

The Saturday before Halloween we took the kids to the Elgin Christmas Tree Farm to play at their pumpkin patch. We looked at the animals, found our way out of the maze of hay, took a tractor ride, and looked at lots of pumpkins. Later that night we went to our ward's Trunk-or-Treat at church. We all had a great time. The kids were quite happy with the candy that they collected. Allie was just happy to finally get to wear her Little Mermaid costume. She's been so patient.

Jack and Mommy driving the tractor.

Jack and Daddy during the big tractor ride.

Daddy and Jack hanging out on the pumpkins.

Jack looking cool among the pumpkins with a ring of drool around his neck.

Allie and Jack sitting in the pumpkins. The sun was in their eyes and neither of them wanted to cooperate so this was the best picture we could get.

Batman and Ariel (The Little Mermaid)

Jack would not leave his mask on long enough to get a picture of it.